Viet Thanh Nguyen is a University Professor, Aerol Arnold Chair of English, and Professor of English, American Studies and Ethnicity, and Comparative Literature at the University of Southern California. He is the author of Race and Resistance: Literature and Politics in Asian America (Oxford University Press, 2002) and the novel The Sympathizer, from Grove/Atlantic (2015). The Sympathizer won the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, the Dayton Literary Peace Prize, an Edgar Award for Best First Novel from the Mystery Writers of America.
Viet Thanh Nguyen studied at UC Berkeley because of the university’s reputation for academic rigor and its alignment with his personal and intellectual interests. In interviews, Nguyen has mentioned that UC Berkeley’s environment allowed him to explore questions about history, politics, and identity, particularly as they relate to his experience as a Vietnamese refugee. Berkeley's atmosphere of activism and its commitment to social justice were also appealing, as Nguyen has consistently focused on themes of memory, war, and the refugee experience in his work. The university provided a fertile ground for his interdisciplinary approach to these subjects, helping shape his development as a writer and scholar. He received both his BA and PhD in English at Berkeley.